How To Make Small Talk In A Foreign Country

The absolute elementary step for finding a romantic partner is to actually gather the courage and talk to a stranger you are interested in. Getting introduced or making an ice-breaking comment only takes a couple of seconds, but it can also be an incredibly difficult step to take if you tend to be shy around strangers. Without doing this, however, it’s hard to imagine how people would ever find friends.

Small talk is so essential that you should be aware of the dos and don’ts when you talk to lovely girls or guys from around the world. We looked up how small talk is practiced and regarded in 5 areas on the globe, so here are a few tips for your online dating chats to go nice and smooth.

The United States

Not to generalize too much, but by and large starting a chat with someone from the U.S. is a piece of cake. Americans are famous for their small talk skills. Being asked about your day or how you are feeling is a widespread part of how people interact every day.

Brazil

Not too far from the U.S., Brazilians seem to share the appetite for small talk with their North American counterparts. Take a leap of faith and be the first to start a conversation with your Brazilian crush. You’re surely in for a good talk that, if you’re compatible, is bound to last for hours and hours.

Russia

Russians on the other hand are less likely to engage in chats about the weather and other pleasantries. If you bring up stuff from the news or the latest scandals though, you just might qualify as a good conversationalist for your Russian hottie. Take it from there to get to know each other better and really hit it off, because that’s what online dating is all about.

Germany

If you’re looking for an online affair with someone from Germany (and more broadly from Western Europe) be prepared to get into a personal conversation within minutes of meeting them. Skipping straight to the point can be a great strategy if you’re on an online dating site, since skipping the intros can give you a better and faster insight into how much compatible you are with the person you just met.

Of course, take these descriptions with a grain of salt. They are not meant as strict rules of conversation; human interaction so rarely happens to be easily predictable. You can keep them in mind for whenever something about your conversation partner from another part of the world strikes you as a little bit odd. Asking more intimate questions may be a matter of how people of different backgrounds learned to interact with others, especially if there is a romantic interest at stake.